I'd also like to throw something else in, a lesson which I learnt. How well do you know this person?

I mean, I always thought I was an only child, I thought my father only had one child. He never told me otherwise.

Well, I went searching a number of years ago and discovered that there was a whole string of children, a whole string of half brothers and sisters to different women. And I discovered a whole string of marriages. Did he even bother getting divorced in between? Probably not. Why bother? Why not just lie, like everything else? It's much quicker and easier for sure. Marriage and children used like a bargaining chip.

It's taken me years to get my head around all of this, not being an only child any more, discovering other half brothers and sisters, discovering connections, wondering if there might be others, trying to reassess myself in all of this, work out how I felt, and then discovering that I wasn't the oldest child after all, there was someone else, someone before me. Having to rethink everything again, work out how I felt. And knowing that he was more than perfectly capable of doing to them what he had done to me. Hours and hours of excruciating therapy to untangle the threads of it all.

So you see, the things that you take for granted, the most important things about yourself, are probably those things that he will bring into question and use to try and destroy you.

About fear in psychopaths: my ex tells me he has no emotions, no guilt, no fear. Can't bond. Only emptiness inside. I believe that. He's 100% fearless when it comes to his, my or my sons safety. He got me so scared and desperate that I did not want life anymore. And he knew it, enjoyed it, and tried to push me over the edge by increasing his games. While pretending to act out of kindness and love for me and my son. I believe he's capable of killing or kidnapping if he feels like it. What would keep him from it?

There's just one thing I can't understand. It feels like he is ruled by some weird primal fear (?) of losing control. He is paranoid and always expecting others to be hostile. I've seen him nervous, intimidated by some men..more like an animal that meets a stronger male than a human being. Especially if they are staring at him. He also seems to have "fear" of losing control over his body, f.e. growing old, weak or fat.

To me this is puzzling. It made me doubt. Is this fear? How can I understand this? Is this normal in psychopaths?

And, since I am forced to confront him to protect my child.. could there be anything at all that chases him away from us?? Or at least prevent more severe violence?

This is something that touches me. Finding out that nothing was what it seemed to be and I did not know him at all was one of the most shocking and scary things to me. I have a child with him and know nothing of him, he is totally unpredictable for me. Many things he told me were fake. There are so many things that he has been hiding and I keep on wondering: what else is there? Does he have other children? What else that I do not know about? He is hinting at criminal things..is that true?

It was so unsettling to discover that I just knew nothing and I'm still puzzling to figure out "who is this man?" and also "who am I?". Because being in a relationship with him changed my whole view of myself.

This must be even more ehmm.. putting your world view and selfimage completely upside down (don't know how to express myself in english) if he's your father. I admire your coming out so strong.

It feels like a tornado came over my life and left me sitting dizzy in the middle of all the broken stuff, trying to figure out what happened. Can't imagine what it must be like to grow up in all this.

But I do somehow have start building up again and change things. I'm trying hard now, especially for my son. I've quit all contact and I'm lucky to have family and friends supporting me and I finally found a good psychologist too. To convince the courts that unsupervised visitation is really not a good idea is the biggest challenge of the moment though.

As a child of such a father: do you have any advice on how to support my child in this, if ever he's forced to have contact with his father?

Speaking of fear, last night I was watching TV and I had a bunch of the show Dateline recorded on my DVR, jeez, they were all about socialized Psychopaths who had killed someone. And no I am not murder baiting, it is reality, we are just starting to see them captured and TV shows that show the real stories of their horrific crimes, one of them that stands out the most got away with murder for years, it was when a couple dug up their yard to put in a pool that they found his body, it is still unknown what happened to the wife, there is speculation she was part of it and is still alive. Luckily a wise detective had had her eyes on him and even though she was retired when she saw him his face on the news because he had abducted his daughter after a supervised visit, had a get away car and snatched the young girl. It hit the national news and the x cop when she saw his picture on TV she knew it was him from years ago. He was a master of disguise. He was married to a Harvard graduate woman and was a stay at home dad. When she divorced him she moved to the UK. To fill in the gaps she had discovered his lies and clearly must have moved so far away to get away. It was when she was here in the States for his visitation because he was only granted a couple of supervised visits a year. Luckily he was caught and the young girl was safely reunited with her mom. They said the mom fainted and fell over when she heard the news her daughter was safe. Imagine her fear was so great she just toppled over with the great news. A brave woman who had been childhood friends of the wife who is still missing was the one who kept the case alive, constantly seeking justice.

It is not hard to find many of these documented cases of socialized Psychopaths who have killed, they do NOT have any fear. We are just at the tip of the iceberg in finding the reality and frankly it backs up my feeling that they are all capable of horrific crimes, the socialized ones are just now getting on our radar.

Unlike the few "non socialized" crimes I have watched in person in court, they got caught quite easily because they just aren't as slick. If the Psychopath who lead the brutal slaying in the bank here hadn't stopped for lunch, who knows. They had killed before and didn't get caught, they only admitted to a couple from prison where they are locked up for life so they were safe from further prosecution. Fortunately they aren't as smart, one of the cars they stole, the get away driver split from the scene so they knocked an innocent couple aside and stole their car and they had a GPS system. Then they went to a farm where the keys were in the truck like people do here, people here had no reason or feelings of fear before this and a lot of people leave their keys in their cars and houses unlocked.

You don't stop and eat if you are in fear, they feel NOTHING. I watched the bank video, talk about trying to stay centered and in my neutral zone. I have had to put it in a place of my mind to not remember it. It has been several years and his booking picture is blazed in my mind, that wide smile still sickens me.

My closest friend here works with sex offenders, while she can't give me any details and I don't ask her because she can't tell their stories and frankly I don't want to hear them. In this State they transition here from prison until they pass the requirements and then get moved to another location. When she showed up last night to help me I told her I was upset because some jerk had been at our community spouting that they had no fear and asked her the question, do you think any of those people you have feel fear? She looked over her glasses and said you have got to be kidding me, they don't feel anything, they have no souls. This is coming from someone who has worked with them for 28 years.

There's just one thing I can't understand. It feels like he is ruled by some weird primal fear (?) of losing control. He is paranoid and always expecting others to be hostile. I've seen him nervous, intimidated by some men..more like an animal that meets a stronger male than a human being. Especially if they are staring at him. He also seems to have "fear" of losing control over his body, f.e. growing old, weak or fat.

Interesting you should mention this, Marinde. It's a very subtle thing to have seen this and be able to put it into words. Primal. This is what I have sensed in both of my Psychopaths (MIL and her daughter), but it's the only thing near fear that they have demonstrated. Maybe it's paranoia, maybe it is a startled pause to weigh the odds. Otherwise, they create a wide swathe of wreckage -- like a tornado -- with matter-of-fact certainty that they will get away with whatever it is they want.

I think the Psychopath has stressThe stress of trying to appear normal to the worldIt must take a ton of effortThey may delight in causing harm, but they must fear being outedMaybe they delight in that too, so they can turn it around to make you look bad and them the victim

Whatever, it's a game, I feel that:every harm inflicted is done with a sneer, only joking, you are too serious, I was only having a bit of fun, lighten up

With all your resources put into conniving and manipulating, why do others die about them and they don't?Stress may be their adrenalin. Stress to us is a killer, to them it's food!

They appear to react violently when oppressed and the curtain behind their tricks is pulled on them.

With that said and upon further thought, I don't think they fear anything, not even some high power. If they can manipulate their way through it, it's good to go for them.

With my own father, his whole argument against anything over him is how "corrupt" or "brainwashing" it is. That is your mother (any other family member that sees right through him), religions (ALL religions are evil blah blah blah, Jesus didn't exist blah blah blah, everyone is a nutcase who goes to church), government (even I don't really trust the government, but yeah I know, they are bad, you told me my entire life while bragging how great this country is), law enforcements (all cops are crooked, dirty, filthy pigs and whatever else according to him), and so on. But the funny thing is, the times he did get in trouble with the law (getting pulled over FROM WHAT I KNOW OF; I have no clue how many times he was arrested as a teenager) he was so cool and calm and managed to talk the cops out of letting him go for driving with an open beer in his hand, or reducing his ticket.

I think a psychopath fears loosing control of a victim and having no replacement. When all is said and done their life revolves around manipulation and spewing their evil onto others. I think they fear not having that outlet and having to live without their "game". They will do anything to keep a victim under their control if they haven't already found a new target to play with.